Taijiquan 太极拳

Taijiquan, also known as shadowboxing, often shortened to taiji or tai chi in English, is a major division of Chinese martial arts. It is practiced for both its defense training and health benefits. In China, taijiquan is categorized under the Wudang style of Chinese martial arts, that is, the arts applied with internal power. Although the name of Wudang falsely suggests these arts originated at the Wudang Mountain, it is simply used to distinguish the skills, theories, and applications of internal arts (neijia①) from those of the Shaolin style, external arts (waijia②).

There have been different sayings about the origin of taijiquan. The traditional legend goes that the Taoist hermit Zhang Sanfeng of the Song Dynasty created taijiquan after he had witnessed a fight between a crane and a snake; while most people agreed that the modern taijiquan originated from Chen Wangting, who created the Chen style taijiquan, which first appeared during the 19th century in the Daoguang Reign of the Qing Dynasty.

Besides the Chen style, there are other four styles, all named after the Chinese family from which it originated: Yang style (杨氏) of Yang Luchan, Wu (Hao) style (武氏) of Wu Yuxiang, Wu style (吴氏) of Wu Quanyou and his son Wu Jianquan, Sun style (孙氏) of Sun Lutang. The order of popularity (in terms of the number of practitioners) is Yang, Wu, Chen, Sun, and Wu (Hao). The major family styles share much underlying theory but differ in their approaches to training.

The differences between the different styles range from varying speeds to the very way in which the movements are performed. For example, the form “Parting the wild horse’s mane” in Yang style does not at all resemble the very same movement in Sun style. Also, the Sun 73 forms take as long to perform as the Yang 24 forms. All existing styles can be traced back to the Chen style, which had been passed down as a family secret for generations. The Chen family chronicles (家谱) record Chen Wangting, of the family’s 9th generation, as the inventor of taijiquan. Yang Luchan became the first person outside the family to learn it, whose success in fighting earned him the nickname “Yang Wudi”, which means “Unbeatable Yang”, and his fame and efforts in teaching greatly contributed to the subsequent spreading of taijiquan knowledge.

The philosophy of taijiquan is that, if one uses hardness to resist violent force, then both sides are certainly to be injured to some degree. Such injury, according to taijiquan theory, is a natural consequence of meeting brute force with brute force. Instead, practitioners are taught not to directly fight or resist an incoming force, but to meet it in softness and follow its motion while remaining in physical contact until the incoming force of attack exhausts itself or can be safely redirected, meeting yang with yin. When done correctly, this yang/yin balance in combat, or in a broader philosophical sense, is a primary goal of Taijiquan training. Lao Tzu provided the archetype for this in the Tao Te Ching when he wrote, “The soft and the pliable will defeat the hard and strong”. Traditional schools also emphasize that one is expected to show martial morality, to protect the defenseless, and show mercy to one’s opponents.

Abridged and revised from

http://www.chinaculture.org/created/2005-10/21/content_74830.htm

Notes:

① neijia: 内家, 主要指刚隐于内的武术风格，或以内功为主的武术家，或“以静制动”的拳术。一般将武术两大流派之一的武当拳称为内家。

② waijia：外家，练筋骨皮重于练气的拳法叫做外家拳法,它更讲究以力量和速度克敌，以招式为先。